The use of digital devices, such as personal computers (PCs), personal digital assistants (PDAs), smart phones, media players, tablet devices, etc., has become nearly ubiquitous. Often a user has multiple such devices, whether operable to provide the same or different functionality, and considers the use of their devices necessary to function professionally and/or socially.
Despite the homogeneous nature of these mass-produced and mass-marketed digital devices, various features are often provided for the digital devices to be personalized for the user. For example, digital devices such as PCs, PDAs, smart phones, and tablet devices often have an application with the capability to allow a user to capture or store an image file on the device and to use that image file to provide a personalized background (often referred to as a “wallpaper” feature). Similarly, digital devices such as PCs and tablet devices often have an application with the capability to allow a user to capture or store one or more image files on the device and to use that image file to display those one or more image files when the device is idle (often referred to as a “screen saver” feature). Digital devices such as PCs, PDAs, tablet devices, and smart phones often have the capability to allow a user to capture, select, or store an audio file and/or an image file for an alert, such as an incoming call notification (often called a “ring tone” feature for the audio alert and an “avatar” feature for the image alert) or for a status alert (often called a “program event tone” feature for the audio alert).
The foregoing features, although allowing a user to personalize their devices, are typically cumbersome to use and provide substantially static use of media. For example, not only must each of a user's digital devices be individually and manually configured by the user to implement the personalized media, but each application which includes a personalized media feature typically must be individually and manually configured. Unfortunately, the applications, whether on the same digital device or on different digital devices, implement a unique interface for configuring their personalized media features. Moreover, the user must upload the desired media file, capture the desired media file (e.g., by taking a digital photo or digitally capturing a sound sample), or otherwise find and harvest the desired media file (e.g., from a connected device or via a network). Although some digital devices provide a database of media files which may be used in a personalized media feature, such databases are generally very limited and the relevance of these media files to the user, and thus their applicability as personalized media, is generally dubious. Accordingly, where a user takes the time to utilize the personalized media feature of an application on a digital device, the personalized media tends to remain relatively static. Moreover, a user often does not take the time to utilize the personalized media feature of applications of each of their digital devices, or even for each of the applications having personalized media features on any single digital device.